HELENHELEN
HELENHELEN
HELEN
XXVI
High-bornHelen, round your dwellingThese twenty years I’ve paced in vain;Haughty beauty, thy lover’s dutyHath been to glory in his pain.High-born Helen, proudly tellingStories of thy cold disdain;I starve, I die, now you comply,And I no longer can complain.These twenty years I’ve lived on tears,Dwelling for ever on a frown;On sighs I’ve fed, your scorn my bread;I perish now you kind are grown.Can I, who loved my beloved,But for the scorn “was in her eye,”Can I be moved for my belovedWhen she “returns me sigh for sigh?”In stately pride, by my bedside,High-born Helen’s portrait’s hung;Deaf to my praise, my mournful laysAre nightly to the portrait sung.
High-bornHelen, round your dwellingThese twenty years I’ve paced in vain;Haughty beauty, thy lover’s dutyHath been to glory in his pain.High-born Helen, proudly tellingStories of thy cold disdain;I starve, I die, now you comply,And I no longer can complain.These twenty years I’ve lived on tears,Dwelling for ever on a frown;On sighs I’ve fed, your scorn my bread;I perish now you kind are grown.Can I, who loved my beloved,But for the scorn “was in her eye,”Can I be moved for my belovedWhen she “returns me sigh for sigh?”In stately pride, by my bedside,High-born Helen’s portrait’s hung;Deaf to my praise, my mournful laysAre nightly to the portrait sung.
High-bornHelen, round your dwellingThese twenty years I’ve paced in vain;Haughty beauty, thy lover’s dutyHath been to glory in his pain.
High-bornHelen, round your dwelling
These twenty years I’ve paced in vain;
Haughty beauty, thy lover’s duty
Hath been to glory in his pain.
High-born Helen, proudly tellingStories of thy cold disdain;I starve, I die, now you comply,And I no longer can complain.
High-born Helen, proudly telling
Stories of thy cold disdain;
I starve, I die, now you comply,
And I no longer can complain.
These twenty years I’ve lived on tears,Dwelling for ever on a frown;On sighs I’ve fed, your scorn my bread;I perish now you kind are grown.
These twenty years I’ve lived on tears,
Dwelling for ever on a frown;
On sighs I’ve fed, your scorn my bread;
I perish now you kind are grown.
Can I, who loved my beloved,But for the scorn “was in her eye,”Can I be moved for my belovedWhen she “returns me sigh for sigh?”
Can I, who loved my beloved,
But for the scorn “was in her eye,”
Can I be moved for my beloved
When she “returns me sigh for sigh?”
In stately pride, by my bedside,High-born Helen’s portrait’s hung;Deaf to my praise, my mournful laysAre nightly to the portrait sung.
In stately pride, by my bedside,
High-born Helen’s portrait’s hung;
Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays
Are nightly to the portrait sung.
(Illustration)
To that I weep, nor ever sleep,Complaining all night long to her:Helen, grown old, no longer cold,Said, “You to all men I prefer.”
To that I weep, nor ever sleep,Complaining all night long to her:Helen, grown old, no longer cold,Said, “You to all men I prefer.”
To that I weep, nor ever sleep,Complaining all night long to her:Helen, grown old, no longer cold,Said, “You to all men I prefer.”
To that I weep, nor ever sleep,
Complaining all night long to her:
Helen, grown old, no longer cold,
Said, “You to all men I prefer.”
(Illustration)